


Colors

by NumptyPylon



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Colors, Colors as Memory Triggers, F/M, Memories, Romance, eidetic memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23243545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NumptyPylon/pseuds/NumptyPylon
Summary: “What’s your favorite color?” Rayla asked. A strangely frivolous question from her, Callum thought, but it was kind of a nice and flattering thought that maybe the spell of fluttery romantic perfection that had seized him since she had grabbed his scarf, was affecting her too.It was a hard-to-answer question though. He thought about colors a lot. He didn’t have just one favorite. “Uh, I have more than one? If you gave me a limited tonal range, I could probably-”She sighed indulgently. “Just name one of them, dummy.”-Kind of hard to summarize? Rayllum fluff, focused on memories and colors.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 120





	Colors

**Author's Note:**

> So, Callum has an artist’s eye and an eidetic memory and that gave me this idea, of colors as memory triggers. Might only appeal to me, because I’m weird about colors. Inspired by being stuck in corona isolation in the rural wasteland that is my parents’ village, without my art supplies. I only have three colors and they don't even blend! The horror! :D
> 
> So I’m trying to do a kind of word picture instead, a more visually focused narrative than I’ve done before. It ties into details from my longer story Downtime in Wartime, but it should stand alone, so if you haven't read that you're still fine :)
> 
> There’s a bit of mention of blood, not very graphic. Let me know if you think I should up the rating though.

“What’s your favorite color?” Rayla asked. A strangely frivolous question from her, Callum thought, but it was a kind of nice and flattering thought that maybe the spell of fluttery romantic perfection that had seized him since she had grabbed his scarf, was affecting her too.

It was a hard-to-answer question though. He thought about colors a lot. He didn’t have just one favorite. “Uh, I have more than one? If you gave me a limited tonal range, I could probably-”

She sighed indulgently. “Just name one of them, dummy.”

“Pigeon blue.” He said.

_The sky, dark and menacing, but pulling at him. Shades of grey and leaden blue, pigeon blue, a silly name for a color so beautiful and dangerous. Rayla perched on the ship’s railing, beautiful and dangerous too, but not now. Not dangerous anyway. The strike of lightning heightening the worry on her face, throwing her features into sharp contrast, black and white like a drawing in ink._

“Blue, then. Like your jacket?”

“No. I don’t generally like blues too close to primary blue. So I don’t really like this jacket too much, which is probably fortunate.” He said, considering the sad state of the garment, sure to make Opeli tut with disapproval.

The fraying at the sleeves, fading to a lighter tone.

_The sun, beating down, not hot, not here in the mountains, but too bright for comfort, reflections off the yet unmelted snow. All the colors slightly off, with the dual light of shining snow and sunny sky. Rayla, stalking ahead, but turning to see if they were following. Eyes squinting against the brightness, tinge of pink across the pale skin of her nose and cheeks. Sunburn?_

The rubbed-in greener stains of grass at the elbows.

_Pushing against the grass beneath him, twisting purple-black tendrils of dark magic, the dark path he had chosen coloring the world. Rayla pulling at him, wet hair, dirty face, luster and brightness lost to mud and rain. They have to get out of here, she had said, but there was no getting out, there was no escaping the black. The grass beneath him looked green, but it felt black._

Rayla’s blood, dried to a just slightly brighter and more purple tone than if she had been human, streaks from her fingers at the top of the sleeve and shoulder.

_Panic rising as he pulled at the rocks. Blood, not the red he knew, just very slightly purplish red, running down her forehead, pooling at her eyebrow, staining the white. Her hand coming away from her arm, tinged the same purplish red, leaving stains on his jacket as she grips him for support. Her eyes not the usual bright lilac but darkened with pain, and every part of him wants to stop this frenzied pace that’s hurting her more, but they can’t because they left an actual angry dragon in their wake._

His own blood a brownish stain near the cuff where he had carelessly wiped his mouth after an unfortunate encounter with a tree branch.

_Lighter spots in his vision, dizziness still pulling at him slightly, but he wouldn’t lean on Rayla, still limping, feet bare against the moonlit grass, the right one marred with purple and black. He wiped his bloody mouth, uncaring of it leaving stains of dark red on the faded blue of his sleeve. They reached the faintly glowing leaf that was their bed, as big as his bedroom in the castle, but light, warm green like tiny sprouting plants. Transparent light turquoise goop on Rayla’s hand, then her fingers on his lower lip, gentle across the torn skin, like the kiss he wished it was._

Rayla looked at him, amused and affectionate. “You really are capable of being a dork about just about any topic, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s a gift.” He grinned at her.

“So share it with me?”

“What?”

“Your gift. What’s pigeon blue? Paint me a picture.”

“Uh, I don’t have any colors except the charcoal.”

_Black with just a hint of brown, changing tones to lighter and browner as he smeared it across the paper with his fingers. Dad, but he had been King Harrow then, had given him the first stick, worn to a stub before his 6 th birthday. After that, he got them from the surveyor's office, but they never seemed quite as good as the first that had been a gift._

“And the chalk.”

 _White with greenish-grayish impurities._ _The soft white rock left on his desk, another gift, but this one from little Ez, barely 4 years old, but he knew the type of chalk his big brother liked. Ez would stuff it in his pockets for him when he found them, disregarding the white streaks it left on the rich red of his clothes._

“And the color of the paper itself.”

_Yellowish, greyish tone, beige, but more yellow. The paper in his sketchbook wasn’t the same color anymore, not pristine like when he had received it. He took some drawings out, replaced them with blank sheets so he could keep using the book itself. Each new batch of pages a slightly different tone. The binding, rich brown leather worn smooth, had to be the thing that made it the same book as when he had gotten it, the same gift._

“It won’t make any kind of blue.” He finished.

“I meant a word picture.” She smiled indulgently.

“I’m not really as good at those as an actual picture, but… I’ll try I guess. Grayish blue. Like the sky during a thunderstorm. Warm blue, but not much red in it, that’s why I like it. And it reminds me of the primal stone. It’s like… like the feeling you get, looking at lightning striking. Anticipation. Release. A staticky feeling.” He stroked his hand across her knee through the thin fabrics of her leggings, tracing the lighter lines - light, bright teal, almost but not quite turquoise, against the base color, a darker and more muted shade. His own too-pure-blue jacket against the teal. Mixed they might almost make pigeon blue, he thought.

“I think you need the sky arcanum to get that feeling,” she shook her head a little, but warmth in her voice.

“Oh sorry, I guess that was not a very good word picture.”

“No I liked it. It’s kinda nice, to get a sense of how you see the world. It’s poetic. Well, not so much what you’re saying, you really aren’t that great at painting word pictures.” She teased, leaning her head against his shoulder thoughtfully. “But what’s underneath the words… all the things you notice that I don’t. Shades of colors I’ve never thought about.”

“You’ve never thought about there being more than one shade of blue?” He asked, disbelieving.

“Obviously I have!” She looked a little miffed. “Like, your jacket is kinda medium-blue and my boots are dark blue?” Her boots tended towards green, and was a more subdued tone, one of the blues he liked. His jacket, well not so much. But she really didn’t see it? But then again, there were plenty of things she saw that he did not.

The change in the lightening dawn sky, far earlier than he could detect it. Even what he thought was pitch darkness wasn’t so to her.

The trajectory and speed of an incoming object, crystal clear to her, where he was apt to stand there until it hit him in the face.

The perfect witty comeback, immediate and clever. That only ever occurred to him several minutes too late.

“Callum?” She asked, curious, but looking just a bit shy. “What color are my eyes to you? They’re purple, I know that, but-”

“Lilac.” He said, without hesitation. “Light purple, but not enough blue in it to be lavender or violet. That’s… also one of my favorite colors. At least on you it is, the way it plays against the purplish undertones in your skin and the reflective bluish silver in your hair… it’s beautiful. I didn’t want to start off with that though, that seemed pretty cheesy.” 

_Purple tint to the skin, the way it reflected light, lilac eyes, the way her eyes reflected light, obvious to him that she wasn’t human. That Human-Rayla wasn’t human. No, it was hard to find it funny, when he knew it would only take one person like him, one person to look at her like he did._

“It’s very cheesy. But… thank you. It feels sorta special now, the way you put it.” She didn’t think her eyes were special before? That was almost more baffling than thinking of colors only in terms of how dark they were.

_Lilac eyes wide and bright, always so mesmerizing he could barely breathe, subtle pink across her cheeks, soft pink like her lips, not sunburn this time, getting closer… what?! WHAT?! Brief brush of lips against his, over before he could process the sensation. What. Wow. That… wasn't what he was expecting._

Rayla’s finger tipped his chin up. The bright lilac eyes in front of him again now, like the memory but better. Brush of soft, pink lips, but not so brief and not so unexpected.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha, I honestly can’t figure out if this was cheesy or pretentious or both. It’s an experiment, so you’re really welcome to let me know how it worked for you, even if that answer is that it didn’t 😉
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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